Kathmandu, March 4

Though the government has been harping on increasing investment in the infrastructure sector to bridge the yawning infrastructure gap, the government’s spending on infrastructure was disheartening among the strategic sectors categorised by the fiscal budget 2016-17.

Among the six strategic categories namely, productivity enhancement, infrastructure development, social development, governance strengthening, intersecting development and administration, of the fiscal budget, spending under infrastructure development and governance strengthening was weak.

According to the Ministry of Finance (MoF), only 15.56 per cent of total allocated amount worth Rs 353.58 billion for infrastructure development was spent in first half of this fiscal. Likewise, spending under the productivity enhancement was also dismal as only 17.92 per cent of total allocated amount of Rs 82.04 per cent was spent in the first half of the fiscal, as per MoF.

Only 15.56pc of allocation for infrastructure development spent

“Weak performance in implementing infrastructure projects and productivity enhancement projects are holding back economic growth.”

Though the government has been allocating a large chunk of resources through the fiscal budget for investment in infrastructure and productive capacity enhancement, the result delivery has been adversely affected due to lack of utilisation of allocated resources.

Among the six categories, a large chunk of the budget was spent on administration, which was nearly 38 per cent of allocated Rs 436.82 billion, followed by social development at 24.69 per cent of total allocation worth

Rs 135.86 billion for this fiscal.